Hey time for another game review. The last one was Blazblue, which turned out to be one of the greatest fighting games I have ever played, so hope you are all excited for this one.
The game, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, is a side-scrolling hack-and-slash made by the creators of Odin's Sphere. As you can imagine, the playstyle is very similar, but are about 10x more enemies and thus 10x the amount of flashier moves and combos you can execute as well. The art style is extremely beautiful, even to the extent that the backgrounds of each area you are exploring are extremely detailed and looks like it came straight out of a landscape portrait you'd see in an art museum. Which is fitting, because everything is hand-drawn.
The storyline is where this game is the real winner, and it's always good to be the best at the most important aspect of a game. I didn't get a chance to see the actual intro to any of the characters, but I got a good idea of the idea of the story from watching about 10 hours of gameplay (yes I'm reviewing this based on someone else's experience, not mine). You have a choice of 2 characters: a male ninja Kisuke, or a female kunoichi Momohime. For Kisuke, he had lost his memory after some sort of crazy incident, and he wakes up to find his own ninja clan calls him a traitor and is hunting him down. For Momohime, you actually play as a guy whose soul kicks Momo's soul out of her own body and takes over. He does this to prevent death, but a deeper story unfolds as he and Momo's soul end up having to work together to give Momo's body back while the other soul seeks a stronger body. Both arcs start off with different towns, different enemies, and a different storyline, but both share two things in common: you are fighting in medieval Japan, and you both wield demon blades forged by a cursed sword maker, and these blades require you to feed them souls. So obviously peaceful negotiations are not an option.
The gameplay is a bit short for a basic run-through, but still extremely entertaining. Every sword has a special ability, unique stats, and durability. Durability is dropped by parrying attacks and using the special ability; it is gained from feeding the sword souls or keeping it sheathed. If the durability drops to 0, then the sword is "broken" for a period of time as it regenerates from souls/sheaths. While broken, it cannot parry anything anymore and deals minimal damage, but can still be used in combat. You can carry up to 3 swords at a time (although you can keep an unlimited amount in your inventory), and you forge new swords as you level up and gain more souls from killing, and more spirits from eating and using healing items. There is a chart of swords you can forge in the game, and obviously to forge certain end-game swords you have to follow a certain path of sword forging. You also get special swords from defeating bosses in order to break "barriers" and advance further in the game, as well as unlocking forgeable swords down the chart that require the sword as a pre-requisite. Experience and levels are also gained from absorbing souls, as well as completing entire fights with bonuses, such as not being hit, or killing everything quickly.
There are a few problems with the game, but nothing really big. The biggest problem is the fact that there is no seperate button for jumping in a game that allows double-jumping, hugely important in combat and exploration. You just have to push up twice, even though it'd be more convenient to have a button configuration menu or simply allocating one of the unused ones. The game has 2 modes: normal and hard, with the difference being hard gives you more souls but you cannot parry attacks from behind and, well, everything is a lot harder. Normal mode is actually pretty easy once you start forging swords, as the enemies don't seem to scale properly with the power of the swords very well. And once you get an xp boost bonus with a sword or an accessory you can equip, well let's just say my friend hit level 70 simply by blazing through to the final boss. Oh yeah, and this game is only on the Wii, the reason why I was not able to play it.
That said, this game is an amazing game, and a couple of simple tweaks would help make an even better game if they decide to make a sequel. It is roughly about 10-20 hours of gameplay through each character's storymode once (depending on how much of an effort you actually try to find 'everything'), but the sword forging tree connects both character's paths and requires you to beat both of their paths at least once, so you to get the full experience of destroying things with angry demon swords, you have to play one character at least twice, which is fine by me. If this game was on the Playstation 3, I would pay the standard $60 price tag for it without a second thought. Instead, it's on the Wii for $50.
Final score: 9/10
Monday, September 14, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Dany Heatley to Sharks
So after the rumor of Heatley going to the Sharks started, died, and has been falsely confirmed about 100 times, the trade finally went through. Dany Heatley of the Ottawa Senators and a 2010 fifth round draft pick have been traded to San Jose for Milan Michalek, Jonathan Cheechoo, and a 2010 second round draft pick.
Let me be straightforward here: I hate this trade. I absolutely detest it. I feel the Sharks have been ripped off. A little over a month ago, I stated that out of Marleau, Cheechoo, and Michalek, Michalek was the one player we absolutely should not trade, with Marleau being right up there. He is a guaranteed 20+ goal scorer year in and year out (and after last season's performance, I'd even say he'd be a guarantee for 30 this year) on a young second line that revolved around one thing during the 2009 regular season: consistancy. And after the past trade with Vancouver, we've basically given up Ehrhoff, Lukowhich, Michalek, and Cheechoo with a second rounder for Heatley, 2 prospects, and a fifth rounder. I'm excited about one of the prospects who is still in his college years, but the second one was supposedly a bust in Vancouver's eyes. So Heatley for 2 young upsiders, and another young skater who has already shown what he can do at his best just doesn't sound like a deal that will keep San Jose in the hunt past the next 2-3 years. And why were the Sharks the one that gave up the better draft pick?
Let's look at the upside. Depending on how our lines look, the Sharks now have one of the most deadliest looking first lines in the NHL heading into the regular season. Obviously, Thornton and Heatley on the first line is a lock. Who gets the second wing position, however? Marleau would complete that line in terms of stacking all our fire-power into a line that would probably average 22 minutes of ice time per game. But I like keeping Setoguchi up there; I have a feeling we might see a repeat of the Thornton effect that he had on Cheechoo if we move Seto away as well. Marleau, Pavelski, and Clowe on the second line is still pretty deadly (and it might even be an upgrade to the Michalek version if Marleau can retain what he did last year, but without Big Joe), and gives a lot more balance than if we had stacked the first line and sent Seto to the second. And Heatley on the power play might finally end the curse of the slumping power play in San Jose. Michalek and Cheechoo were both overpaid for what they delivered last year, and were mostly given contracts on their potential, so in terms of money management, GM Doug Wilson invested in the safer point producer. Stacking first lines could also work, as we've seen it done in Pittsburgh, Anaheim, Chicago, and Vancouver.
But the problem I have is still that we had to give up so much just for one guy. I don't think our 6th defenseman slot will be an issue given how many defensive prospects we've drafted in the past few years, but we have a lot of holes to fill in the third and fourth line. I'd hate to see the first 20 games of the season turn out to be an AHL prospect tryout session on those lines as we try to figure out who the heck to fill those holes (because we still barely squeeze under the salary cap after the Heatley deal, so we're not about to sign more free agents). Speaking of the salary cap, where does this put Nabokov at next season? Are we seriously going to let one of the best goalies in the league walk just because he had ONE bad playoff year (after the 4-5 amazing ones)? What happens if he comes back to old school Nabokov form this year? Like I said, I don't like this deal because of what it could mean for the Sharks in the near future.
Let me be straightforward here: I hate this trade. I absolutely detest it. I feel the Sharks have been ripped off. A little over a month ago, I stated that out of Marleau, Cheechoo, and Michalek, Michalek was the one player we absolutely should not trade, with Marleau being right up there. He is a guaranteed 20+ goal scorer year in and year out (and after last season's performance, I'd even say he'd be a guarantee for 30 this year) on a young second line that revolved around one thing during the 2009 regular season: consistancy. And after the past trade with Vancouver, we've basically given up Ehrhoff, Lukowhich, Michalek, and Cheechoo with a second rounder for Heatley, 2 prospects, and a fifth rounder. I'm excited about one of the prospects who is still in his college years, but the second one was supposedly a bust in Vancouver's eyes. So Heatley for 2 young upsiders, and another young skater who has already shown what he can do at his best just doesn't sound like a deal that will keep San Jose in the hunt past the next 2-3 years. And why were the Sharks the one that gave up the better draft pick?
Let's look at the upside. Depending on how our lines look, the Sharks now have one of the most deadliest looking first lines in the NHL heading into the regular season. Obviously, Thornton and Heatley on the first line is a lock. Who gets the second wing position, however? Marleau would complete that line in terms of stacking all our fire-power into a line that would probably average 22 minutes of ice time per game. But I like keeping Setoguchi up there; I have a feeling we might see a repeat of the Thornton effect that he had on Cheechoo if we move Seto away as well. Marleau, Pavelski, and Clowe on the second line is still pretty deadly (and it might even be an upgrade to the Michalek version if Marleau can retain what he did last year, but without Big Joe), and gives a lot more balance than if we had stacked the first line and sent Seto to the second. And Heatley on the power play might finally end the curse of the slumping power play in San Jose. Michalek and Cheechoo were both overpaid for what they delivered last year, and were mostly given contracts on their potential, so in terms of money management, GM Doug Wilson invested in the safer point producer. Stacking first lines could also work, as we've seen it done in Pittsburgh, Anaheim, Chicago, and Vancouver.
But the problem I have is still that we had to give up so much just for one guy. I don't think our 6th defenseman slot will be an issue given how many defensive prospects we've drafted in the past few years, but we have a lot of holes to fill in the third and fourth line. I'd hate to see the first 20 games of the season turn out to be an AHL prospect tryout session on those lines as we try to figure out who the heck to fill those holes (because we still barely squeeze under the salary cap after the Heatley deal, so we're not about to sign more free agents). Speaking of the salary cap, where does this put Nabokov at next season? Are we seriously going to let one of the best goalies in the league walk just because he had ONE bad playoff year (after the 4-5 amazing ones)? What happens if he comes back to old school Nabokov form this year? Like I said, I don't like this deal because of what it could mean for the Sharks in the near future.
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